


White Blank Page

by orphan_account



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: M/M, Post Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-06
Updated: 2012-12-06
Packaged: 2017-11-20 10:31:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/584433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Since John received that cryptic little text, his life has been a whirlwind of open ended questions, extremities in all forms, and the loss of <i>something.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	White Blank Page

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FlyingPigMonkey](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlyingPigMonkey/gifts).



> Written for flyingpigmonkey based on their prompt: "I wish I was enough" for Johnlock Challenges. Title taken from Mumford & Sons.

“Any developments?” John swallowed hard, his eyes falling to the floor as he gripped the phone in his hand tighter. By this time, the doctor knew Mycroft well enough to distinguish tones no matter how similar they were. The icy, bored voice didn’t always have the same effect that Mycroft probably thought it did, especially when it came with Sherlock.

“No,” John said, his eyes rising from the floor to the ceiling at the loud scrape that erupted from his room, just above his head. Sherlock had taken John’s room as soon as he moved back into the flat. It was only months ago but it felt like yesterday.

“He’s still doing the same…” He didn’t have a word for it yet, “routine.”

Mycroft remained silent. John gripped the phone harder, “It’s going to get better.” He said, hating how meek the words ended up sounding.

“John,” Mycroft sighed, a concern cluck coming with his name that John didn’t like at all.

“Listen, I’ve got to go. I’ll let you know if anything…I’ll just let you know, alright.” Another annoyed sigh coupled with an all too familiar “yes, very well then” and the line goes dead. John shoved his phone back in his pocket and moved towards the stairs. He’s careful as he climbs the steps and he hates himself for it. He hates that he’s wary and cautious but he has to be with the way that Sherlock is, the way he’s been acting.

Since John received that cryptic little text his life has been a whirlwind of open ended questions, extremities in all forms, and the loss of _something_. That was what bothered John the most, that Sherlock seemed to have lost something in the three years after his “death” and that _something_ was not simple, it was vital, and it had made Sherlock who he was.

“How long are you going to sulk in the walkway? I find it very distracting.” His voice was soft but held every bit of arrogance as it always had. John rolled his eyes before stepping into his old bedroom. It looked so much different, much messier, the room made much darker due to the clutter. John is a creature of simplicity; a bed, nightstand, lamp, with everything else kept away in drawers and closet. Sherlock liked mess, as if that couldn’t be seen by the state of their flat.

“It’s not messy, John,” Sherlock used to say, “Everything is in its proper place, you’re just not looking hard enough.” He would smile then, his eyes crinkling at John’s frown and raised eyebrow.

John hasn’t seen Sherlock smile since he came home.

“What are you doing?” John takes a tentative step forward, towards Sherlock. His pale, lithe figure is hunched over, scribbling furiously on the floor boards. John craned his neck, hoping to god that there was paper somewhere in that equation. There was. Dozens of white sheets of paper covered the floor where Sherlock kneelt; some blank, others dotted with a few notes, and some covered so thoroughly with ink that they looked black. 

Sherlock didn’t answer, whether he heard the question in the first place John couldn’t tell. The concerned man bridged the gap, stopping to stand next to the crouched man. He tilted his head at the pages scattering the floor but couldn’t see past the various words and numbers to make sense of it. Just as well.

A sudden weight was at his thigh and John looked down to see Sherlock’s head pressed against him, John’s fingers carding through the thick, black curls. He hadn’t even realized he had been doing it. His chest constricted as Sherlock grew still, pressing the side of his face against John’s leg, his left hand coming to curl around his ankle. It was the closest thing to a mutual embrace that they’ve shared in a long time.

John breathed deep and tried to swallow past the lump in his throat, brushing his fingers down Sherlock’s head, stopping to play with the short curls at the nape of his neck. The younger man sighed, sitting back on his heels, his back straightening rigidly. John let his hand fall from Sherlock’s hair. His fingers ached to reach out; to kneel next to him, wrap his arms around the struggling man and just _pull_ , pull him out of whatever was happening inside his head.

“Anything that I can help with?” John’s voice was quiet as he watched Sherlock curl around himself once more, pen in hand and set to paper but not writing anything. He watched as the younger man visibly tensed, his shoulders set, jaw clenched. For a breathless moment John thought “this is it”, felt that after four months Sherlock was going to finally say something, give him some inkling of what was going on, what he was feeling.

“No.” The moment passed as quickly as it had come. John nodded to himself.   

“Right then,” He passed his eyes over Sherlock’s form once more; the lithe figure, pale skin, and thin wrists. Three years and four months before that body used to reside permanently at John’s side at crime scenes, long nights in his bed, on top of him, inside him, all around him. The smaller man used to spend hours finding new spots that would make Sherlock squirm, sensitive areas that would make him cant his hips, where he was ticklish. Body worship was frequent and utilized by both participants.

John hasn’t kissed Sherlock in Three Years and Four Months.

“Well, I’ll be downstairs if you need me or anything at all.”

**

Three Years and Four Months ago, Sherlock stepped off of the roof at St. Bart’s and made John watch as he fell to the ground. The months and years following were without a doubt the hardest of John’s life. He spent weeks after Sherlock’s death with a tense jaw and clenched fists, listening as reporters mocked and criticized New Scotland Yard, destroyed Sherlock Holmes, and then eventually forgot all about him.

John didn’t go back to the Yard, not with Sally, Anderson, and the rest of the officers who encouraged the arrest. The doctor knew that they had just been doing their job but their personal feelings had far outweighed their “position credibility” and John could not look past that. Sally Donovan was the only one who apologized; the only one, other than Lestrade, who had actually went to Sherlock’s funeral, a short burial on a Tuesday morning.

“John, I had no idea that he would…” The tears in her eyes were the only thing that kept John’s mouth shut. He had nodded and turned on his heel to return to Greg’s side.

After Sherlock’s death, Greg Lestrade became a steady presence in John’s life. The majority of their time was spent in silence that meant far more to John than words could. They didn’t speak about it and Lestrade did not apologize; he didn’t have to. John wasn’t the only one who had lost something that morning. While they bickered and fought more than was necessary, usually at Greg’s dispense, Lestrade had considered Sherlock a friend as well. It was during the months following Sherlock’s death that John realized that Lestrade was just as alone as he was. The thought should not have been as comforting as it was.

The weeks after the funeral were a blur of bad dreams and packing tape. John, Greg, and Mrs. Hudson gradually cleared out 221B. They tried to leave Sherlock’s things for the end but found out quickly that that would be impossible for the simple reason that his things littered every corner, every drawer, the floor, the cabinets, _every_ space available.

One evening after hours of tense silence and careful packing, Greg let out a loud sigh and threw his hands up, “What _is_ all this shit?” He pulled out dish after dish from the cabinets; unfinished experiments, stoppers, beakers, a tin of cigarette butts, and a book entitled “Mutants: On Genetic Variety and the Human Body”.

John couldn’t help the loud laugh that escaped him and for the first time in weeks remembered Sherlock, not with blood on his face and dead eyes, but his annoyed grimace, rolling eyes, with a rude retort on his tongue.  John could have kissed Greg for giving him a memory that didn’t include the bloody, broken body of the man he loved and didn’t know how to live without.

Once the flat was packed up, contents put in storage, and the door finally locked, there was a sense of finality that John didn’t know what to do with. He had a new flat, a new bed, new medication, same job; everything plain, beige, and _boring_. But it was something.

His life grew routine, not better but bearable which had been more than he could hope for. The ache in his chest never went away though, and he tried to get rid of it, as selfish as it seemed. He tried to fill that hole with correspondence, old friends, old girlfriends; a new level of tedium, that. 

He sat in booths, his palms wrapped around a pint, and listened to faceless, old friends go on about their dead-end jobs, men and women they were seeing, their apologies. It was maddening. “ _Is this how Sherlock felt all the time?_ ” John thought and suddenly shooting a wall didn’t seem all that bad.

Nights were the worst, always had been and always would be. There had been a time, though, a precious few months, when that John had actually looked forward to them. John lay awake at night thinking about those nights and what they had meant. It hadn’t been every night, no, but it had been most. Sherlock would finish an experiment, feet frigid and teeth chattering. He slipped in the bed so quietly that John usually kept on sleeping. It was in the morning, though, where he would wake and feel a long body pressed against his side, a pale arm draped across his waist, and a dark, tousled head on his pillow, breath tickling his ear. Sherlock slept like the dead which had, in no way, surprised John.

He spent days and weeks which turned to months and then years trying to simultaneously remember and forget all of the little things that had made up their relationship. Their gradual shift from flat mate to friendship to relationship had been effortless and with little to no conversation. Well, that’s not entirely true. After the initial, unprompted kiss followed by a disappearing Sherlock, John paced the room, reorganized the fridge, cleaned the sink, and came to the conclusion that…no, just _no_. They were going to finally talk about the lingering looks, the small touches, the sleeping-in-the-same-bed thing, and they _were_ going to talk about the Kiss.

The moment Sherlock walked back into the flat, John was in his face but before he could say anything, the lanky git curled his lip, craned his neck and peered into the kitchen.

“Have you now resorted to _cleaning_ when you’re upset?” He sounded positively horrified. John gaped.

“No-Yes…what does it matter? It was disgusting anyway.” Sherlock’s eyes narrowed, pushing past John and into the kitchen.

“It was _not_. John, so help me God there were blood samples on the counter,” The detective began rummaging through cabinets, moving papers, and generally making a mess all over again.

“Hang on, Jesus Christ, they’re right here.” John stilled Sherlock’s hands with his own, gesturing to the small side table just before the sitting room.

Sherlock glanced at the table, the petri dishes and vials all there just as John had said. He sighed, “Well, good.” He leaned down and pressed his lips to John’s in a small chaste kiss.

“Now,” He leaned back, his fingers tangled in John’s. “Don’t you start having a stereotypical sexual identity crisis; you’re really much smarter than that. Plus it doesn’t look good on you.” John glared at him.

“We’re not going to label this and don’t you try to.” John shook his head, smiling despite himself.

“Do I get any say in this?” Sherlock tilted his head, looking John up and down before nodding curtly, “I suppose so.” John smiled and essentially, that was that.

**

Three Years after the fall, John dropped his coffee and burnt his hand.

_Where are you?_

John had been in his office between patients when he received an anonymous text and three years before he would have been wary, thinking of all sorts of possibilities but _that_ was three years ago and this John Watson didn’t think that way anymore, had no reason to.

_Who is this, may I ask?_

He remembers distinctly that he had tried to make it sound polite in case it was a colleague or someone he had met at a conference.

_Sherlock. It’s imperative that I see you immediately._

It was at this moment that the coffee slipped from John’s grasp, fell across his desk and his own hand. The burn was immediate; his reaction was not.

_Good one._

_You’re responses have been quick, not distracted then, perhaps even bored. It is a Thursday at nine in the morning though so not at your flat. I’m assuming you’re working full-time now, with there being no more cases. Most likely at the same job due to the level of familiarity and stability. Am I wrong?_

_Go fuck yourself._

John shut his phone off, stuffing it into his pocket for good measure. Rubbing his hands across his face, he breathed out sharply. No matter what he told himself no one had ever gone to lengths of finding his mobile number. There had been reporters after the Fall, of course there had been; a few waiting outside of his flat, harassing his blog, and an investigative few found out where he worked.

His phone rang, interrupting his thoughts and alerting him of a walk-in. John went through his routine with the patient, checked the vitals and listened to a paranoid story of an inflamed ear canal. John nodded in all the right places and consoled the shaken mother of two that, no, she did not have onset deafness. His heart wasn’t in the conversation, though, instead he was still focused on the phone in his pocket, a heavy weight against his thigh.

It would be just like Sherlock to send a text and expect John to take it in stride, unquestioning. John shook his head to himself after the woman left, thanking him profusely for easing her troubled mind. Sherlock was dead, had been for three years; John, himself, had gone to the morgue, checked his pulse, and had cried himself hoarse in the flat hours later. He couldn’t afford to go down this trail of thinking; he had, at one point, questioned it all and nothing came from it but bad dreams and worried friends.

Of course, it was at this moment that the door opened without prompting and in walked a large black coat, blue scarf, and a familiar, bloodless face.

**

Four months ago Sherlock strolled back into John’s life and since then…god, he didn’t know what to make of it anymore. There had been words, _oh_ there had been words. Both Sherlock and John proceeded to spend the better half of the next two months screaming at each other, harsh words meant to hurt. Between the fights, though, John held Sherlock so tightly it had to hurt the other man. If it did, Sherlock didn’t say. Tears were shed the night of his return, whether it was due to being betrayed for so long, pain, or relief, John couldn’t say, perhaps it was a mixture of all of them. Sherlock had been there sitting next to John, his fingers laced tightly with his until John’s tears were gone. He hadn’t said a word but that was fine because he was _there_ , next to John, and thoughts like those made his eyes fill all over again.

The technicalities of returning to the living took a long time to sort through, even with Mycroft’s help. The press had a field day and scrambled to get the inside scoop from the “Consulting detective who defied death in pursuit of justice”.  It was after all the chaos was over and the loose ends tied that John turned the corner and found something else to battle.

They moved back to 221B, more of Mycroft’s doing than anything else. “Familiarity, John. It’ll be good for him. And you.” Despite John’s protests—“Don’t you think it’s a bit…soon?”—it felt good to be back under that leaky roof, to hear the same creaks in the stairs. John felt happy, he felt right; Sherlock was in the room with him. There were times where he would leave and John would fear that Sherlock wouldn’t come back, that he would disappear all over again. He longed to kiss those full lips again but Sherlock wasn’t having it, not yet. “I’m not…ready for…that. Not now.” He had said. Sherlock held John’s hand tightly in his own as he had said it, reassured John through the fierce look in his eyes that he wasn’t unwanted.

After the fighting had been smoothed over, the questions—the majority, anyway—were answered, things went back to normal, or _their_ versions of normal. Lestrade was given his job back, the officers under his authority all with tails beneath their legs, and Sherlock was given cases, albeit small ones but cases nonetheless.

John credits his unawareness to his stupor, the sheer incredulity of Sherlock’s return. Later he’ll blame his own anger about being betrayed and lied to, then he’ll say it was because of his own joy that things were finally, _finally_ , getting better. But really, John had noticed it since Sherlock had returned.

There were small things at first, things Sherlock tried to cover up so John, too, ignored them for Sherlock’s sake. The ever-shaking left hand that looked all too familiar, John turned a blind eye, only making it known when he would still the shaking fingers with his own. The eye contact that had once been unnerving and intimidating was nearly nonexistent now but, “Hell,” John reasoned, “He’s been gone for three _years_ , bound to be some changes.”

It was more than that, though, and John should have known.

The silence was the most disturbing. While true that there were times when he didn’t speak for hours, sometimes days, on end there was always something else, some reason for it. He would be playing the violin, typing furiously, flipping through pages of books or journals. Now there was complete and utter silence. Sherlock finished the cases Lestrade gave him with ease, quickly and with little to no banter. He retreated quietly to the flat, lay on the couch, and wouldn’t move.

Early on, he asked if he could have John’s old room. “Heat rises.” Was his simple reasoning. John had been so thrilled just to be with Sherlock that he acquiesced with no thought involved. So up Sherlock went, holing himself inside his room for days without a peep. John had noticed the odd behavior but waved it away; he was being selfish and wanted to ignore all the signs and symptoms of Not Fine because, fuck, Sherlock was back.

The little nuances Sherlock tried to cover up slowly began to grow into something deeper and darker until few words became no words, until Sherlock confined himself to his room, John having to seek him out. The small, nagging worry that had started in John’s gut spread to the rest of his body quickly, settling in his chest. It ached, the feeling in John’s heart that he had tried to ignore and brush off. The look in Sherlock’s eyes, his dark, utterly unreadable gaze began to bring back memory of blood soaked scarves and pavement.

John pressed his hand to his chest because he knew, deep down, that he was losing Sherlock all over again. He could see it in the way Sherlock recoiled and curled in on himself, he had seen it months ago during their fights, “You are not the only one that has lost something in these three years. I’ve tried, John, I’ve tried so fucking hard to…to be _enough_. I fought to hell and back for you, to come home to you. I wish…I was—.”

**

A burst of cool air woke John from his fitful sleep. He blearily blinked and hissed as the duvet shifted and frigid air sneaked into his otherwise warm cocoon. Equally frigid fingers were suddenly at John’s side, smoothing down his ribs, and a familiar weight dropped into the bed next to him. The duvet was pulled up and around the two, John looking over at Sherlock warily. They hadn’t slept together in over three years and while John wanted to do nothing but wrap his arms around the other man, he didn’t want to push it. No matter what his needs were, something was happening inside Sherlock and John didn’t want to further the problem by being clingy and suffocating.

Sherlock shifted awkwardly, John’s tension palpable. Long, thin fingers reached down, tangling themselves with John’s small, sturdy ones. He played with them, swallowing around the lump in his throat. He fought for words that used to come so easily to him. He didn’t know what to say, how to tell John about all the horrible things that he had done, how he felt like a stranger here, in the flat. Sherlock couldn’t bring himself to say that he felt odd and out of place, like he was getting lost inside his own head. There were times when he thought it would have been much easier to have jumped off that roof three years ago, to honestly have played Moriarty’s game and ending it there.

Sherlock lifted his head, meeting John’s eyes and knowing that no matter what would have been easier, there was no way that he could voluntarily leave this man. He had tried, too, had originally planned on not coming back because, for Sherlock, there was always going to be men like Moriarty and with that threat, John would never be safe.     

There was a tentative hand suddenly at his side, idly fingering the thin cotton of his shirt. It was a request of sorts, an unspoken, “Let me do this. Let me help you.” Sherlock nodded imperceptibly and leaned forward, his arms coming around John’s small waist. He sighed loudly, his grip tightened unconsciously, his body remembering the shape and feel of John’s body, its ever-present warmth and stability. Familiarity. He rested his head on John’s pillow, just inches from the other man.

A shaky hand lifted, John ghosting fingers across the side of Sherlock’s face, running lazily over his cheekbones, his lips, reminding and rememorizing. He leaned forward, kissing Sherlock’s full lips softly, his hand running though those thick, dark locks.

“You are enough.” John whispered against Sherlock’s lips. A strong arm wrapped itself around Sherlock and held tight.

Sherlock’s lips quirked, not quite a smile but close enough. He closed his eyes and for the first time since he returned, he felt like he was home.  


End file.
